1290.5. Mary Russell Mitford to EBB
Addendum to The Brownings’ Correspondence, vol. 7.
Three Mile Cross,
June 17, 1843. [1]
What disenchanting things these autographs are! When I was at Clifton, my friend Mr. Johnson brought to show Miss James some American signatures, South and North, curious Spanish documents as far back as the Conquest, and all the Presidents’ autographs; and those of the men who signed the Declaration of Independence. Amongst them was a correspondence of General Washington’s.
Washington was a Virginian, remember, and they are all horse-jockeys, just as the Yorkshire squires of the last century were; and this series of letters from the great patriot contain as notable an endeavour to “do” an acquaintance in the sale of an English horse as ever figured in the annals of Newmarket. I have no great fancy for the celebrated personage in question. He was much too cold and calculating for me, and I was exceedingly amused at the correspondence, the genuineness of which was testified in a manner that could not be disputed. Also there were certain directions about his blacks, not a little shocking to the Abolitionists of the present day. Fine words—patriotism and disinterestedness, and so forth! grand to write and to listen to! But look at the real truth, and out comes the great patriot jockeying his acquaintance (for he “dear-sir’d” the poor man all through) after a fashion, which would have merited a place in “Bell’s Life,” and run a chance of incurring the wider celebrity of the Old Bailey. Ah! it is a fine thing is patriotism!
Nevertheless, you may laugh at me in turn, for dear Mr. Kenyon can bear witness that I once asked for an autograph myself—no less than Daniel O’Connell’s, the only one I ever did ask, and which (except I could add to it the signature of Napoleon) will ever remain alone in my desk, for a great man I still think him, and one whom I should gladly know. Mr. Townsend (he is, you know, a proctor of Doctors’ Commons) promised me, if I came there to see him, that I should hold in my hands, at one time, his and Milton’s, and Shakespeare’s signatures to wills, of unquestioned and unquestionable authenticity. Mr. Kenyon had the goodness to help me to Mr. O’Connell’s.
Text: L’Estrange (2), III, 194–195 (as 17 January 1843).
1. Although dated 17 January 1842 by L’Estrange, this letter seems to have prompted EBB’s comments in letter 1292 regarding O’Connell and Napoleon.
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